Foucault News

Sabrina Corbellini and Margriet Hoogvliet (eds.): “Medieval and Early Modern Places and Spaces of Knowledge,” in: Le foucaldien, 7/1 (2021),

Collection launched: 29 Mar 2021
This special collection welcomes articles discussing places and spaces connected to knowledge and its practices in the premodern period. In order to be fully understood and investigated, knowledge should be spatialized and studied in relation to the spaces, either physical or conceptual, in which it is produced, transformed, and disseminated. In addition, practices of knowledge are spatially determined and create social and discursive spaces as such, through the dialogical relationship between the participants. Ideally the contributions will address lieux de savoir (Christian Jacob) and situated knowledge in the premodern world, with a special attention to micro-historical approaches and urban contexts, including cartographic representations.

See also
Corbellini, S., & Hoogvliet, M. (2021). Introduction: lieux de savoir and archéologie du savoir. Le Foucaldien, 7(1), 3. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/lefou.94

Abstract
The introduction to this special collection addresses a fundamental issue: the link between savoir/knowledge and the spatial turn in the humanities. This point, which will be the connecting thread of the articles to be published in the collection, is addressed and discussed through an analysis of two books that have significantly influenced theoretical reflection in the mentioned field: Michel Foucault’s L’Archéologie du savoir (1969) and Christian Jacob’s Qu’est-ce qu’un lieu de savoir? (2014). Keeping in mind the theoretical developments of the past half century, the introduction will look back on Foucault’s concepts in order to see how they can be re-read in the light of recent developments in the spatial humanities and in particular in connection with the concept of lieux de savoir and the history of (religious) reading and knowledge transfer in medieval and early modern culture.

Keywords: spatial turn, knowledge, lieux de savoir, history of reading, medieval and early modern culture